The Crying Game

Or perhaps I should say the Crying Test. It's familiar to all of us: if you've ever edited manuscripts or acted as a slush editor--I hope if you've ever written a story, poem, or play--you've encountered it. "This must be of God--it made me cry."

Now, there's some truth to that. I tend to respond to the touch of God that way myself. But it's also true, as I bluntly put it not so long ago, that people cry watching Bambi. In fact, I have occasionally read stories that I found extremely moving, and that annoying part of my mind that I have painstakingly trained for such moments (it is not natural) would spoil the moment by informing me that the thing was theologically bad. I need that part of my mind: without it, I could easily be blown back and forth by my emotions.

I have been deeply moved by stories that denied the resurrection, the sinlessness of Christ, and other major doctrines. I have been brought to tears by texts that promoted secularism, pantheism, and other evils. Sometimes you have to shake yourself free of the work's spell--for all art is a kind of enchantment--and force yourself to think. And if you do, you'll always be pilloried by those who can't or won't bother to do the same.

It's still worth it.

You see, it's better to force yourself to be bloody-minded (by the power of the Blood) about art than to find yourself crying more painfully later over something you shouldn't have allowed in to begin with.

About Dark World

I thought I should explain a bit about Dark World and why I'm doing it. The simple answer is to try something different.

I don't mess with critique groups anymore, for the simple reason that I don't find them useful. (Others do; this isn't a blanket condemnation.) So I was told that I should change a past tense verb to the past tense, and various people advised me to do things that are ungrammatical (many writers are apparently functionally illiterate) or wouldn't mean what I wanted to say. There was an extreme example where someone looked over two chapters of a story, was ABSOLUTELY SURE she knew what I was trying to do, and explained at great length how to do it properly. I replied that I wasn't trying to do that at all, and I even detailed how the story did work. Her response was that I should abandon my project and do the sort of story (a Narnia knock-off) that she envisioned.

So I gave up on crit groups. But a complaint I encountered a few times was that I never put forward a work in progress, only stories I had more or less finished and even polished. I don't like people looking over my shoulder while I work, and I have enough trouble with kibbitzers trying to second-guess my intentions in finished works; I don't want to think what they would do with something obviously unfinished, which they would surely consider more open to meddling.

My writing style would annoy such people anyway. Not only do I tend to edit as I go, so my rough drafts look polished, I also get back into the story in progress after a break by re-reading (and thus re-editing) the previous chapter or so.

Yet the idea of just sitting down and writing something without my usual procedures appealed to me. I didn't want to write a complete chapter every day, just two or three a week. And anyone who wants to see what my rough drafts look like may now do so.

Quantum of Solace

Not the Bond movie; this has more to do with the original short story upon whose title the movie is based. The idea is that there is a bare minimum of solace or comfort required to keep going, to keep life bearable.

I would suggest that this applies to fiction as well. I doubt anyone wants a story where everyone is happy and life is wonderful all the time. But sometimes the reaction against the high-fructose sweetener plot leads to something equally emetic. I don't think I've ever actually encountered the totally wonderful bit in a book, not even in Pollyanna, which is actually an above-average story, better than the Disney version. I suspect that the Pollyanna defense is really just a poor excuse for putting syrup of ipecac in story form.

In any case, if you have enough negative elements, the story turns ugly. There's enough ugliness in the world without our adding to it; there is enough darkness without our dwelling on it. I would suggest that the negative elements in a Christian story be largely allusive: I already know what ugly looks like and would rather not spend page after page refreshing my memory. But if you can show me beauty, real beauty that isn't just photoshopped ugliness, that is an accomplishment. Or if you're going to stick something ugly in my face, at least do not do so at every turn. Like violence in splatter films, ugliness--be it moral or aesthetic--soon palls, and you have to increase the dosage to get the desired effect. That's called desensitization, and we have more than enough of that as well. In fact, this shows why, even from the standpoint of justifying darkness and ugliness, it's a bad idea.

Supposedly, highlighting such things is simply realistic. But courtesy of desensitization, the highlighting has to be more and more extreme to get the point across, taking us further and further away from that all-important "real life." I was surprised, for example, that no one seemed to notice the character flaws in the guys from League of Superheroes; I kept reading reviews that they were unrealistically good. Yet Tom is sarcastic, condescending, sanctimonious, proud, and a bit cowardly. Even Charlie tends to appease more than he should. But no one noticed these things. Why? Because they weren't exaggerated, and people only notice what's stuck in their face.

Do you call that Art? Then why is it Art to push exaggeration further and further and make reality harder and harder to spot?

Anyway...

Chawna Scroeder posted on the moral and spiritual side of this problem a while back, and I've found her analysis helpful; perhaps you will too.

A Double Standard?

A friend of mine showed me his magnum opus of the moment. He's a fairly new writer, and it has the marks of the newbie. For example, there's a place where a pastor is explaining Life, the Universe, and Everything to a genuine Seeker. Ignoring the fact that it's set up as a showcase for the writer's interest in apologetics, there is a spot that seemed a little extra over the top.

I begin to see that a lot of would-be writers (and even a few who've arrived) have trouble with logical sequencing. In this case, the arguments are presented in no particular order, and sometimes a remark will contradict something said elsewhere. (In fairness, a lot of this stems from hasty editing: it's easy to assume that you can change something at one point without introducing conflicts elsewhere, but that's not the way it usually turns out.)

So the pastor jumps into an argument against Evilution (not so spelled, but that's the idea) without any warning or cogency. I pointed out that the question was properly not Creation vs. Evolution, but Design vs. Chance. The writer proceeded to equate Evilution and Chance, which is often true but not logically necessary. Yet even that is only the tip of the iceberg.

The pastor simply claims that there is no evidence whatever for evolution, that the fossil record does not substantiate it at all, and so forth, even to the cliché about a tornado converting a junkyard into an airliner. And for some reason the Seeker, though supposedly intelligent and apparently somewhat skeptical at other points, simply believes him.

Now consider: if a scientist, such as Stephen Hawking, pontificates about theoretical physics, I'll give him the benefit of any doubt: it's his field, not mine. But when Hawking wanders into theological matters and starts expounding his views, as C. S. Lewis used to say, he's no longer speaking as a professional scientist but as an amateur theologian, and in that field my credentials are at least as good as his. I am not overawed.

But if it's arrogant nonsense for a scientist with no theological background to pronounce on theological matters, why is it acceptable (to many Christians, at least) for a pastor with no discernible scientific background to pronounce on scientific matters?

This is why I seldom bother with scientific refutations of evolution: they are out of my field, and it's not appropriate for me to use them. On the other hand, the people who originate them sometimes wander into my field (language, the Bible, etc.), and their performance there is generally poor enough not to inspire any trust elsewhere. We could use a bit more caution along those lines.

The people whom we tend to cite and whose ideas we accept uncritically are Christians, but that doesn't make them right. They may be mistaken or even misled by their own biases. And since I'm not in a position to assess their claims and ideas properly, I won't use them--especially since my audience almost certainly can't assess them properly either.

And that means I'm needn't give Hawking, Dawkins, et al. equal time to avoid being a hypocrite.

Cyndere's Midnight 5: A Response to some responses, part two

This time I'll be looking at a comment from Robert Treskillard. It's a long comment, so I'll try to keep my responses short.

1) Your comparison of Cyndere and Ryllion. Ryllion's story we know, and we can see clearly he is "religious" and deceived. I think our modern American culture is also "religious" and deceived.

Cyndere, on the other hand, doesn't believe in the Moon Spirits (non-religious), but then again, she's been given nothing else to believe in. Sounds also like many modern Americans.

Both points are true, but there is a true faith in America as well. There is apparently none in the Expanse. Where is God? He isn't the Keeper, which is interesting because the Keeper must be God and yet is specifically said by the author not to be God. (Look at how the Keeper is described. I may go into this later, but the identification is unavoidable yet avoided.) So if Cyndere is given nothing to believe in, that's Overstreet's fault or God's. Flip a coin.

Even biblical pagans apparently were able to know God: Melchizedek lived in a pagan area and described God in pagan terms, yet he evidently knew God. Balaam was in a similar position, though he didn't make good use of the knowledge. I suspect Job is another example. So why doesn't even Scharr Ben Fray seem to know God even in an Old Testament fashion? I see morality (a little, anyhow) and ethics (lots of that), but no God. Why?

But her story isn't *done* yet. At the end of this book, she calls out to "whomever" will help her, she is seeking the truth and who she can trust in. And just because we don't see her convert in book 2 to "proper religion" (even in terms of the Expanse), we need to wait until the entire series is finished before we jump to judgment.

There is no "proper religion" in terms of the Expanse, unless you mean "knowing the Keeper," which doesn't work because the Keeper isn't God.

I did feel a brief uptick when Cyndere cries out for help, but the larger context argues against it. Since the general feel of the stories allows only a nebulous supernatural entity, I can't help finding a mere sop here. You say the story isn't done yet. True. But remember what Peter and John said: do you honestly believe that they could get through two books--700 pages or more--without a fairly solid reference to what they could not help talking about?

Nor do I see any hope of a change in the third book. The logic of the details given in the story thus far absolutely require that the Keeper in some sense be God--or else the Devil. There is no logical alternative. Yet Overstreet rejects the God option, and the Devil option would be nearly impossible at this point as well. This is why I can confidently "jump to judgment": there is a contradiction here that cannot be resolved unless the author retracts his expressed intention, which I don't see happening.

2) Your reference to C.S. Lewis brings up an excellent point, but you are forgetting about the example of Tolkien. I think the two of them gave us different examples, one who's work "rings true and shows a clear morality" yet does not include direct or clear references to God (Tolkien), and one who was much more clear about his Christian themes (Lewis). Both of their works show a Christian foundation, and I think Overstreet is following the Tolkien route. Are you saying Tokein was immature in his faith? Are you applying the same attacks to him? He was the one that led Lewis to faith.

This is complex for the following reasons:

1. It's untrue. Seriously, while there is no Evangelical Protestant message to speak of in Tolkien, that's because he was Catholic. No religion? Nonsense. What about the prayers and hymns to Elbereth, who I think must be seen as a Mary figure? If Overstreet had even that, I wouldn't be so bothered, despite my misgivings concerning overemphasis on Mary. But there is a "true faith" in Middle Earth, and a God who can be known, if only mediately. Where is that in Overstreet's work?

2. It's irrelevant. You're making a few invalid assumptions here. First, maturity and immaturity have nothing whatever to do with being used to lead someone to God. I've heard of people who have come to God through Jesus Christ, Superstar, which specifically claims that Jesus did not rise from the dead. If God can use something blasphemous to reach people, immaturity will prove no obstacle.

Second, you're assuming that Tolkien's and Lewis' works are equivalent. I see no evidence of that. While Tolkien's work is magisterial from a scholarly and literary standpoint, I find no reason to suppose that it is of particular spiritual or eternal merit. I suspect that from God's standpoint, Lewis is by far the more important writer. It's easy to find people who have been drawn to God through Lewis' work, rather harder to find such witnesses for Tolkien. (I don't say they don't exist; by my previous point I would expect them to. But in terms of overall spiritual impact, I would be astonished if Tolkien was anywhere close to Lewis.)

3) I feel like you're caricaturing Jeffrey Overstreet. To quote you: "hell bent ... to be different", an "individualist ... indistinguishable from others", unobvious faith in writing = immaturity, "camouflage [his] intentions", and "won't submit [his] imagination to God".

Now, its possible you were just railing against generic positions and not intending these things to be directed specifically at Mr. Overstreet, but it seems to me that this is directed at him.

Maybe it will help if I requote myself, adding the magic ingredient "context":

Unfortunately, this is something I see quite often, and usually in *writers* with above-average gifts. *They're* so determined (or more bluntly "hell-bent") that *they* are going to be different.

For the curious thing about these *individualists* is how indistinguishable *they* are from one another.

*Some* say that *they* have to camouflage *their* intentions to be read.

If *you* won't submit *your* imagination to God, *you* will inevitably conform to the world. [I'll grant that the immediate context here is ambiguous: I refer to "stories," which could technically be either Overstreet's or those of the group I was already describing. The overall context favors the latter.]

If I were a bit more paranoid, I might imagine that you changed the plurals (indicating a group--I've never accused Overstreet of Multiple Personality Disorder) to singular in an attempt to caricature me.

And I bet it would hurt if he read it, and I think its unfair. How do you know his motivations? How do you know how he lives his life? How he witnesses? How his books will end? Just because his writing isn't "obvious" (yet?) doesn't mean he is anything like your caricatures.

I'm talking very little about his motivations, life, witnessing, or ultimate plot resolutions. I'm talking about the available data. I do find it curious that you keep referring to the idea that some blinding flash of faith will yet illumine the Expanse. Perhaps so. But it's rather like holding out hope for a deathbed conversion: such things do happen, but in general there is a kind of momentum that leads those who have spent their lives rejecting God to keep doing so even in the shadow of the grave.

This is not so desperate a case, of course, but that momentum exists in stories as well. After a while, the writer is pretty much committed to maintain the established course. It's rather like Waiting for Godot, except that there it would be less surprising if Godot did turn up at the last minute. At least we've heard enough about him.

Will this hurt Overstreet's feelings? I actually hope not. He is, as I have said, a writer of unusual talent. I have read some of his non-fiction and found an inexplicable gulf between it and his fiction. I suppose it's really that which troubles me: if his non-fiction were as secular as his fiction, I would reach a different conclusion. But it isn't: and a paradox or contradiction results. Overstreet really doesn't belong in the group with which he now keeps company; may he leave it. But in the meantime it is reasonable to warn readers of the association.

Cyndere's Midnight 4: A Response to some responses, part one

Among the responses to my posts were a few that call for more than just a brief comment. Taking this in either post order or by "ladies first," I'll begin with Rebecca Miller's comment on the second post.

"I see the whole beastman thing as a metaphor for our sin nature."

That's clear enough, but mostly from a Christian standpoint. After all, not everyone in the Expanse is a beastman, and all of them are more or less flawed. Given the general secularism of the story, it's quite possible to see only a drug reference. For that matter, though my reasoning is rather involved, I halfway suspect a reference to jihadists and their cultural/religious "drug" of xenophobic hatred. But this leads to another point:

"But is that me thinking the way I think or is this actually what Jeffrey wanted to communicate through his story? Or is he writing a story without any intention, which allows for multiple interpretations?

"There's the crux of the problem of this current popular trend among Christian writers to eschew theme."

This is a problem, and it's particularly troubling that Christians are following the world here. It's pointless to ask what someone means when he means nothing at all, and it's selfish to deliver a story "some assembly required." That doesn't mean the theme has to be obvious, but it does need to exist. Otherwise it's a story without a point.

It's also true that we subconsciously create or find themes. As I have been writing "Pandora's Lamp," the origin series for the League of Superheroes,I've gained and lost themes. (That's also why I made sure I was mostly through with the origin series before the first book went to press.) But there's a difference between unintended developments and unintended purpose. The first derives from imperfect knowledge; the second stems from intellectual laziness.

The Christian must always ask, "What am I modeling?" We are made in God's image, and if we obey God, we will become like him. Does God create without purpose? Many modern Christians evidently think so, which is why they are keen to ignore Design in their own work. This has dangerous consequences.

I'm appalled when I see "Creation versus Evolution" presented as the ultimate crisis. It isn't. The real divide is "Design versus Chance." You see, pagan gods were creators too, but they usually created at random. And many Christians act as though God creates randomly as well. This is reflected in the "Aurelia Thread" series by (among other things) the reflexive and politically correct equation of men and women. Put another way, they are not simply equal but congruent: ignoring objective data about physiology, he asserts that male and female fighters co-exist routinely in a roughly medieval setting. That's nonsense on several levels, theological among them.

I believe in a Designer, not just a Creator. So where there are differences, as there certainly are between men and women, they are not happenstance. They are meaningful. And unless I understand the meaning, I cannot understand the differences.

Unfortunately in this and other points, Overstreet is roughly in the same position as an atheistic evolutionist: yes, differences exist, and they do derive from something--some factor lost in the fog of prehistory that, combined with a fortunate mutation, set the pattern for the sexes to work one way and not another. But the differences are neither designed nor currently relevant: we may, even should, ignore them. Trans-sexualism and transhumanism show that we can reverse-engineer ourselves. If there is a Designer, especially an omniscient, loving one, that's not a good idea. But a mere Creator may be improved on.

In any case, as agents of the Source of Meaning, Christian writing should be more meaningful than non-Christian writing: we should be overflowing in the midst of the secular drought.

In my next post, I'll take up a longer response from Robert Treskillard.

Lost Genre Guild 1: Get Lost!

To begin our blog tour of the Lost Genre Guild, I thought I'd turn things over to a couple characters who have appeared in "lost genre" type works and are familiar with Frank Creed, who founded LGG. So today's guest hosts are Murray the Alchemist, from the Light at the Edge of Darkness story "At the Mountains of Lunacy," and Rod Davies, or Titan, from League of Superheroes.

Murray the Alchemist: So I guess we have to talk about how Frank founded the Lost Genre Guild. Or found it. Maybe he should find a book on grammar instead.

Rod/Titan: Different words, Murray. Cue the language geek...

Tom Reilly/Darklight: Romance and Germanic roots, yes. You see, "found" is related to "foundation," which--

Rod: ...is more than anyone wanted to know. Thanks for calling. Anyway, Murray, shouldn't you give the link for LGG?

Murray: No, because we've already seen it, so who cares, and why should I tell someone how to find a group that wants to be lost? Besides, if it's Christian fiction, why's it the "Lost" Genre Guild? Shouldn't it be the "Saved" Genre Guild? It makes no sense!

Rod: I think it means "undiscovered" or something--thank you, no language geek interruptions this time!

Murray: Anyway, Frank Creed began the Lost Genre Guild when a sudden inspiration hit him. You can still see the bump if you look hard...

Rod: Wrong bump; that was another inspiration, and I thought we were steering clear of that one.

Murray: What are friends for? Or enemies, whatever. Anyway, Frank looks around and doesn't see much Christian speculative fiction coming out, and suddenly it hits him like ears to the head: people can ignore several individual Christian spec-fic writers, but gather them all in one place, and people can ignore them all at once! Frank's into efficiency.

Rod: I think it's more like getting a bunch of Whos to yell "We are here!" together so they don't get boiled.

Murray: And here I thought it was the other kid who was into Literature! Take it from me: getting everyone together in one place just makes it easier to blow you all to the Moon! Ka-Boom!

Rod: What I wonder about is the statement on the main page: "CHRISTIAN BOOKSTORE SHELVES ARE NEARLY BARREN OF SPEC-FIC." Okay, your bookstore may vary, but CSFF has had lots of Christian spec-fic over the last year. If they aren't on the bookshelves, they're available through online bookstores. Why the drama? I'd like to call in an even greater mind to figure this out.

Murray: Something smarter than you? But my athlete's foot can't go on! It hasn't shaved!

Rod: No, I mean Genie.

Genie: Marketing matters are not within my usual bailiwick, Rod.

Rod: But as a matter of simple logic, what's the deal, here?

Genie: A swift perusal of prior CSFF and CFRB posts indicates that most Christian spec-fic authors are either self-published, published by a small press, or already well-known in some other field. Thus, if Donita K. Paul hadn't started out with romances, she probably wouldn't have been able to publish her Dragonkeeper books. And last month we saw that John Olson had to team up with an established writer to get published. So it's accurate to say that the status quo hinders new writers. The Lost Genre Guild helps new writers get noticed and read, even though it isn't a publisher itself.

Okay, problem solved. Join us tomorrow for a look inside the Lost Genre Guild. I bet we'll encounter a strange man stroking a cat and muttering to himself...

In the meantime, see what the rest of the CSFF has to say on this vital topic:
Brandon Barr
Justin Boyer
Keanan Brand
Kathy Brasby
Grace Bridges
Valerie Comer
Courtney
Frank Creed
Amy Cruson
CSFF Blog Tour
Stacey Dale
D. G. D. Davidson
Janey DeMeo
Jeff Draper
April Erwin
Karina Fabian
Andrea Graham
Todd Michael Greene
Katie Hart
Timothy Hicks
Joleen Howell
Jason Isbell
Cris Jesse
Jason Joyner
Kait
Carol Keen
Lost Genre Guild
Mike Lynch
Magma
Margaret
Rachel Marks
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Nissa
John W. Otte
Crista Richey
Mirtika
Hanna Sandvig
James Somers
Robert Treskillard
Steve Trower
Speculative Faith
Jason Waguespac
Phyllis Wheeler
Timothy Wise

Onward, Christian Writers: No Neutrality II

The previous post generated some positive and negative comment, and I should explain a few points.

No enclaves. It has been objected that an overt Christian message would put Christians into a literary ghetto. Actually, we're already there, and we won't get out until we fight our way clear. We already have the reputation of following the world rather than pioneering, yet any proper study of literature would tell you that much of modern literature parasitizes from Christianity.

That's as it should be.

Instead, we are the Elvis impersonators of the literary and musical world. We turn out second-rate copies of stuff that isn't even worth a first-rate copy.

Subtlety. Subtlety can work--in a different world. People today are generally too ignorant of the Bible (and that includes Christian writers) to notice subtlety, much less produce it properly. Can God use it anyway? Of course; Jesus Christ, Superstar is outright blasphemous--it ends with Jesus very much dead and in many stagings Judas resurrected--but it also contains a lot of Scripture, and people have gotten saved as a result. "Subtle" Christian fiction seldom does even that well. But that doesn't justify blasphemy. (It might justify using Scripture, however.)

If God requires you to go this route, fine. You can count on him to bless the result as you submit to his leading. I doubt this happens much, though. My experience is that a writer will blame God (He told me to write it this way!) initially, only to turn around and rewrite the credits (It's MY story!). But be very sure you totally immerse yourself in Scripture. Turn off the TV and radio (including Christian programs) and give yourself over to prayer and Bible reading. It'll probably take you a month just to get the toxins out. Otherwise your "subtlety" will be nothing more than spouting what you've taken in, and most of it won't be the Gospel truth.

Vive la Différence! One of the big problems is that we try to blend in. We tell the unsaved that we're just like them. But if there's no difference, what's the difference? Groucho Marx heard about a nude musical (I think it was Hair) and stripped off in front of a full-length mirror. He said he didn't see anything worth buying a ticket for.

Neither do unbelievers. If our faith makes so little difference in our lives, if we can blend in that easily, we might as well stop pretending and drop the Christian act.

The side with the better narrative wins--and that should be us! Our story is more shocking, powerful, and beautiful than theirs--and it happens to be true. Let them borrow from us, not vice versa.

But I admit that back in the 1980s I fell for this idea myself for a while. Then I noticed that it didn't work. In fact, when unbelievers finally tumbled to the fact that a subtle story had Christian leanings, they usually felt betrayed. I encountered some very negative remarks about that.

On the other hand, what people want is something fresh and different. Got it. In today's post-Christian world, a lot of people are more curious than hostile, and practically everyone respects someone who's up front with his views. (Think about how popular blogs are! No pussyfooting there!) I know of one case in particular where atheists and others hostile to Christianity still strongly supported an overtly Christian novel because they respected the writer's candor and talent. If we hit them with full-force Christianity, we'll make a few enemies and a lot of converts.

Obedience. But more important, we'll be obeying God. If we continue with "wink-wink, nudge-nudge" writing, we invite the charge that we're ashamed of the Gospel. Why else sneak around? The early Christians were very in-your-face about their faith, and they turned the world upside down.

What will we do? And what will we answer when God asks in the end what we did with what he gave us? Burying the gift in the uncontroversial sands of subtilizing is not an option.

Never Ceese 6: Why It Matters

This has produced a bit more chat and less discussion than I had hoped. To clarify what I've said so far, I've repeatedly acknowledged that the book is well written. I do have problems with the logic and theology, and these are not based on whether certain models for werewolves and vampires are followed. Rather, the question is whether there is a model. From what I see, I doubt it. There are logical contradictions and theological problems:

Richard is both dead and alive simultaneously. His heart apparently does not beat, but his blood evidently circulates; he does not breathe, except when he does, and his physiology simultaneously is and is not normal.

His curse appears to be mere suggestion (his aversion to "holy" things acts like a psychological phenomenon), yet it has effects (levitation, not showing up in mirrors, etc.) that psychology cannot explain, unless we allow psionic activity, which is theologically troublesome.

The curse is also a problem because it can be addressed (at least partially) through non-spiritual means. It's like curing a demoniac with electric shock therapy. This implies that the spiritual is simply another form of the physical--a view that can't be reconciled with the Bible.

Then there's the matter of someone who has been convincingly declared dead getting all chatty at the end. ("Oh, yes, I was dead, but I'm better now. It was only the 24-hour death, you know.") All in all, a splendid argument for cremation.

Okay, so what? Why does it matter? Can't we just do simple fiction? Simple answer: no.

There are at least two reasons for this. To begin with, Christians are indwelt by the omnipotent, omniscient Creator of the Universe; we have "eternal life," which properly does not mean merely life that keeps going like a drum-banging rabbit, but life that is from outside the Universe itself.

We can't be ordinary. Nothing we do can be ordinary. And it is nearly blasphemy to say otherwise: it's like saying the Atonement never happened.

One of the things that got Israel into a lot of trouble was the idea that they wanted to be like other nations, with idols, a human king, and so forth. It didn't work, because they were God's chosen people, and he wouldn't let them be ordinary.

Sound familiar? When we say that we want to produce dreck like everyone else (and we certainly try), aren't we doing the same thing? But we're called to a higher standard, and we can't escape it. (And for the record, no, I'm not calling Never Ceese dreck. I'm speaking generally.)

But there's another reason: we are our brother's keeper. You may say you're not a teacher, but just as we are all witnesses to those around us, so all Christian writers are teachers to their audience, especially if that includes the unsaved, which is hard to avoid. When they read our stuff, they'll say, "So that's what Christians think about X." Like it or not, we've just taught someone something, and given the various warnings about false and careless teachers in the Bible, we'd better hope we taught them well.

(This is why I don't think Christians should write unless it's part of their gifting as teachers, evangelists, prophets, apostles, or whatever. There are plenty of unsaved people out there doing their own thing; we don't need any more like them from our own crowd. We don't even need all the pagan writers we have! But people who write as unto the Lord are a rare gift.)

And thus my fussiness about details. We do all this as unto the Lord, so we should be careful, especially in theological speculation. We all err, despite our best intentions, and we must trust God to make up for our ignorance and folly. But we owe it to him to do our best.

The Shadow and Night 4: The Postmill Setting

I've had a few postmill characters, and in one of my stories--the only "End-Times" novel I've written--there's even a postmill movement called Millennium Now. Unfortunately, MN was split: the ordinary people who went around evangelizing in its name had a very silly, simplistic view of its teachings, while the actual teaching tended to be known only to the more scholarly. I liked the real version, though only the silly version actually cropped up much in the story. (The token brain stated clearly that the zealots were ill-informed and easy to beat in an argument, while the real MN people were far better informed and much more formidable in debate.)
Similarly, a proposed alternative history series features a postmill inventor in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

But in general we don't have characters who are that far removed from our own theology. In my upcoming series "The League of Superheroes," I do have a couple Catholic characters and an Episcopalian who are all amill, but eschatology doesn't really come into the stories much. The theological differences are somewhat important--the Catholics see things in a way that most Protestants wouldn't, for example, and a Baptist character is likewise fairly typical for that group except that he gets on well with the Catholics and doesn't serously try to convert them.

But having characters from other denominations and doctrinal positions is one thing; do we actually represent another view as fact, at least within a story world? I did so in my short story "One Taken, the Other Left" in the anthology Light at the Edge of Darkness, where I posit an odd twist to the usual pre-trib Rapture scenario. (One reviewer accused me of putting "bad theology" in the Lord's mouth, but he couldn't be bothered to explain what was bad about it. From my knowledge of the reviewer in question, I would put my knowledge of theology and the Bible up against his any time. And for the record, the points attributed to the Lord in the story are actually quite standard theology; I just applied them where most others would for some reason make an exception.)

But the question remains: do our settings have to reflect our doctrinal positions? I don't see that they must, so long as the views are either standard doctrine (as postmillennialism is in some circles) or minor tweaks on them. This is speculative fiction, after all, and weirder matters arise. (It's worth noting that Chris Walley's The Shadow and Night doesn't have any alien races, which at least eliminates that problem.)

"Colors" True and False

In the previous post, I extolled the style of Auralia's Colors by Jeffrey Overstreet. Yet there are also problems. Some are errors of fact or genre, which I'll get to tomorrow. But now I'll mention some more general issues, including a theological knot or two.

The most striking problem for me was the Keeper, a strange entity that is supposedly just the bogeyman of children's nightmares, but that instead appears to be a god or divine messenger. The Keeper is described as a horse-headed, winged dragon with fingered feet--a hodgepodge of images. Despite what some have tried to argue, dragons are never positive images in the Bible; they represent pride, rebellion, and self-serving power. (The closest thing to a positive portrayal in the Bible is in Psalm 104:26, which almost makes Leviathan God's pet. Elsewhere, Leviathan/Rahab is the primal chaos dragon of the sea, an enemy God defeats.) Yet the dream in which the Keeper appears is much like the scenes where Aslan turns up for the first time in a Narnia book, and much of what is said is good. So while there are useful points here, my overall reaction is negative.

The apparent bad guys have some minor redeeming feature brought out on cue: these are not flat characters; they are good characters gone wrong. They may even regret their evil and do some minor penance. Unfortunately, that's right before they go screaming to their doom. (This is especially common toward the end of the book.) There doesn't seem to be much grace involved here. I know that God seldom eliminates consequences, but this is dire in places.

Sometimes the shifts work, however, though the main instance goes in the other direction. In one scene, the noble, virtuous, and all-around cuddly prince takes an overseer to task for being obnoxious to the workers. It has all the hallmarks of a cliché. But then the situation flips unexpectedly, and a trite moral becomes a strong lesson: it's one of the best scenes in the story.

As I read, I kept getting the impression that there was some ham-handed moralizing afoot, that there was supposed to be some modern-day relevance, perhaps in terms of politics and current events. This was exacerbated by a reflexive and sometimes preening political correctness: Oh, look! I have fully integrated roles, with soldiers and whatnot of both sexes!

The problem is that epic fantasy (which this most looks like) tends to be very conservative: it isn't about presidents and democracy but about kings, knights, and the occasional damsel in distress. Back-reading modern attitudes only works in parodies. If you would be taken seriously, be true to your sources, not to your times. For even when you have an Amazon, she is a novelty: the fighters will be men, because traditionally they are men, and epic fantasy is about what used to be--or what might once have been. Perhaps the various iconoclastic swipes at fantasy--the Shreks and other fairy tales gone modern--have dulled our ability to understand the genre. If that's so, then true fantasy is dead or at least dying, and only a zombie version remains to ape the original.

Other reviews:
Brandon Barr
Jim Black
Justin Boyer
Grace Bridges
Jackie Castle
Carol Bruce Collett
Valerie Comer
CSFF Blog Tour
D. G. D. Davidson
Chris Deanne
Jeff Draper
April Erwin
Marcus Goodyear
Andrea Graham
Jill Hart
Katie Hart
Timothy Hicks
Heather R. Hunt
Becca Johnson
Jason Joyner
Kait
Karen
Carol Keen
Mike Lynch
Margaret
Rachel Marks
Shannon McNear
Melissa Meeks
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Mirtika or Mir's Here
Pamela Morrisson
Eve Nielsen
John W. Otte
John Ottinger
Deena Peterson
Rachelle
Cheryl Russel
Ashley Rutherford
Hanna Sandvig
Chawna Schroeder
James Somers
Rachelle Sperling
Donna Swanson
Steve Trower
Speculative Faith
Jason Waguespac
Laura Williams
Timothy Wise

Overstreet's "Colors"

Auralia's Colors by Jeffrey Overstreet introduces the Expanse, an area settled centuries before the story opens and now divided into different "houses" or kingdoms. There's a small amount of low-key magic (strictly literary and non-occult) and some gadgetry at a late-medieval level. One of the kingdoms, Cent Regus, has already wiped itself out by ill-advised experiments that turned its people into beastmen.

This story concerns House Abascar, where the now-missing queen persuaded the now-aged king to confiscate anything particularly colorful or beautiful from the citizens. The items were supposed to be used to beautify the palace and improve the kingdom's status among its neighbors, but much of the loot is merely mouldering in a storage area by the dungeons.

Enter Auralia, a foundling with a gift for producing colorful items. She lives among the Gatherers, outcasts from the city of Abascar, but unlike them, she doesn't want to become a regular citizen confined within the city walls. But at sixteen, she is supposed to appear for the Rites of the Privilege to justify her existence and win admission to the city.

The major selling point of Auralia's Colors is the writing. I've read more modern fiction in the last few months than in the previous few years, and it was a relief to encounter a literate author. Most writers these days follow rules set up and enforced by ignorant and poetry-free Pharisees.

By those standards, Overstreet is a lousy writer. So are Tolkien, Lewis, and a host of others. (I could list the rules they break, but the rules are superstitions without linguistic basis.) The defenders of the rules say that rule-breakers can't get published. Overstreet shows that they are and should be wrong. His style is poetic, his vocabulary adult (in the good sense), and his sentences coherent. (Unlike others. Who break their sentences. Into fragments. For no apparent reason.) If you are a writer, you should copy some paragraphs from Auralia's Colors by hand until you get a feel for proper writing. If you are a reader who enjoys modern fiction, avoid this book at all cost; it may open your eyes to good style and ruin what you now prefer.

Other reviews:
Brandon Barr
Jim Black
Justin Boyer
Grace Bridges
Jackie Castle
Carol Bruce Collett
Valerie Comer
CSFF Blog Tour
D. G. D. Davidson
Chris Deanne
Jeff Draper
April Erwin
Marcus Goodyear
Andrea Graham
Jill Hart
Katie Hart
Timothy Hicks
Heather R. Hunt
Becca Johnson
Jason Joyner
Kait
Karen
Carol Keen
Mike Lynch
Margaret
Rachel Marks
Shannon McNear
Melissa Meeks
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Mirtika or Mir's Here
Pamela Morrisson
Eve Nielsen
John W. Otte
John Ottinger
Deena Peterson
Rachelle
Cheryl Russel
Ashley Rutherford
Hanna Sandvig
Chawna Schroeder
James Somers
Rachelle Sperling
Donna Swanson
Steve Trower
Speculative Faith
Jason Waguespac
Laura Williams
Timothy Wise

Wayfarer's Journal--conclusion

So what have we learned?

1. Don't accept rides from aliens. Even if the candy's good, the probes aren't.
2. 186,000 miles per second: It's not just a good idea, it's the law.
3. Only a simpleton judges a magazine based on its first two issues, especially when it isn't some kind of professional start-up.

This isn't to put Wayfarer's Journal down. If it were a Double-Edged project or an offshoot of Analog, I'd set the bar higher. As it is, its first two issues have been good, but it's really too early to review it. I'll check back in another year, perhaps.

It is not too early to get involved by reading and writing. That can begin now. I hope I haven't scared anyone off--I doubt I could if I tried. Keep your brain on, even though it's fiction, because ideas have consequences, and some are serious. Provide feedback and be specific: what was good or bad--and why?

Of course, this requires more than just reading WJ intelligently. You also need to read your Bible intelligently. You are doing that already, aren't you? Broaden your world by picking one of your trivial hobby-horses--something that doesn't matter to salvation, but which you go ballistic over anyway--and do your level best to understand what people on the other side say. If you're a premill, check out amills and postmills. If you baptize by immersion, find out why some sprinkle or pour. There are alien creatures and cultures all around us right here on earth, even in the family of God. You might as well get acquainted.

You might even get an idea for a story. Send it to WJ and see what happens.

Other Blog Links:
Jeff Draper
April Erwin
Marcus Goodyear
Andrea Graham
Jill Hart
Katie Hart
Michael Heald
Jason Joyner
Kait
Carol Keen
Mike Lynch
Margaret
Rachel Marks
Melissa Meeks
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Mirtika or Mir’s Here
John W. Otte
John Ottinger
Rachelle
Cheryl Russel
Ashley Rutherford
Hanna Sandvig
James Somers
Steve Trower
Speculative Faith
Jason Waguespac
Laura Williams
Timothy Wise

The Sacred Cliché

The Sacred Cliché is the only one still applauded by critics, even though it’s as old as a seventies newscast. It involves someone with a disadvantage, whether physical (blindness, paralysis, etc.) or social (ethnic minority, female, etc.), who is put down based on the disadvantage. But it turns out that the disadvantaged person is amazingly (even impossibly) good at something, and the skeptic is completely blown away as a result. So the guy in the wheelchair can still beat him at basketball, the girl can still beat up a guy twice her size who probably has a lot more practical combat experience than she does, and so on.

I deplore this on two grounds. First, it’s patronizing to the disadvantaged person. If he has any sense, he likely knows that his disadvantage (even a social one, such as race) does not confer any super powers. He’s still average, like as not, and from my own experience I can tell you that the only super power a guy in a wheelchair has is that he can’t walk. The better approach would be to note that if the person has been told (especially if the disadvantage is social) that he’s stupid, incompetent, or something like that, again, he’s probably average, and thus superior to what the other person thinks. That can give the element of surprise. Will it be enough to take the villain? If the villain is above average, probably not. But the villain is also likely to be average, so even a slight and temporary edge can be enough.

The second problem is that it can lead to unrealistic thinking. Remember a few years ago when a guy escaped on the way to trial? (This was in Atlanta, I think.) He was a black belt in a couple martial arts, and he was built like a linebacker. His sole guard was a grandmother who was about a foot shorter than he was. When asked why they had such a guard for such a prisoner, the authorities replied that the guard had “so much spirit” that they figured she could handle him. In fiction, yes. But even fiction shouldn’t seem like fiction.

Horror as it Should Be

Horror is one of the most profoundly theological genres of fiction. Other genres can be theological (or at least religious) without much effort, but the implications of horror are essentially theological. It deals with the life to come, the meaning and limits of humanity, and so on.

That's why it's so truly horrible when it goes wrong. The cheap scare, the sleazy accompaniment to the gasps--comic relief is better than jiggle, but not as marketable--all signs of shallow horror. It's probably the hardest genre to do right, given the theological weight, but it's too effective to leave to people who don't even understand the symbols they're using. At least the early Hollywood horror movies acknowledged their sources. Nowadays that's played as camp. But our guide for good fiction of any kind is always based on Philippians 4:8--Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable-- if anything is excellent or praiseworthy-- think about such things. (NIV) Writing by this rule will always be true to its sources.

The other side of the problem is people who go for the gasp even if the theology is bad--assuming that they can be bothered to check it at all. One of the reasons I'm writing my essay on fictional demonology is to give would-be horror writers some idea of how horror can be handled in a theologically responsible way.

Acknowledge your sources. Know your sources. Remember the limitation of fear and of fiction: you can at best spark a teachable moment in your reader. But don't throw that moment away!

Adios, Suckers!

Vampires are more theologically interesting to me than werewolves, though perhaps that's because I see them as fairly straightforward. While a werewolf can be tortured by the knowledge of what he becomes and does, a classic vampire is comfortable in his own skin and someone else's neck.

But what is a vampire? In the early Hammer films, Van Helsing claimed that vampirism was a Satanic parody of and response to the Church. It's an intriguing thought, but unfortunately over time the Hammer films went from speculative theology to PC babble and over-sexed scripts. Avoid any of them from the seventies, and be careful of any from the late sixties. The two best vampire movies I've encountered are Return of the Vampire (with Bela Lugosi playing a vampire that specifically isn't Dracula) and Brides of Dracula (even though the vampire isn't really Dracula). Odd note: the Spanish version of Universal's Dracula somehow has a better script (or else the English version I saw was cut badly). I'd recommend the Spanish one to those who know Spanish or don't mind a subtitled version.

Now, the status of "traditional" vampires (much of the tradition deriving from Hollywood) is fairly clear: they are corpses animated by demonic entities. In some fashion, the soul or spirit of the victim is bound to the corpse, a fact that presumably enables the possessing spirit to use the body. When the victim is released (generally with the wooden stake bit), the demon can't maintain the lifelike appearance of the corpse, which then rapidly degrades as the demon leaves. Theologically tricky at best.

The "St. Judas Syndrome" is especially common for vampires, particularly in modern work. The problem is that a corpse, even if the victim's spirit is somehow bound to it, is still a corpse. The victim, if able to act freely to begin with, can at best hope for a blessed death, as happens in Brides of Dracula.

So a common solution these days is to have a non-traditional vampire. The condition is a metabolic quirk (Ann Rice), the result of a disease (as in the movie The Last Man on Earth), or something similar. The problem is that these aren't vampires as such; they are merely vampiric. It's like having fairies turn out to be just vaguely humanoid bugs.

If I were going to do something along this line, I would have a traditional vampire, but with one (not uncommon) difference: the victim isn't dead, just possessed. The demon has a hang-up about death, so the victim lives in a tomb (Mark 5:2-5). The victim may even enter a death-like state when the demon is less active for whatever reason. I'll pursue this idea in a later version of my essay on fictional demonology.

For another Christian take on the subject, see Sue Dent's novel Forever Richard.

Christian Horror?

We have a reputation as copy cats. And not even as good copy cats. If a type of book or music starts selling well, you can be sure that someone will turn out a "Christian" knockoff of it. And what's worse, we seldom bother to figure out whether the thing really can be copied without messing up our core beliefs!

So can horror stories be Christian? It depends on how they're done. And that leads to the two types of horror. Simply put, these are

1. More-or-less happy (hopeful) ending and
2. More-or-less hopeless ending.

Even an unhappy ending can be hopeful, in which case it provides a warning. Look at some fairy tales for example. (The old ones, not the la-de-dah modern versions where everyone gets counseling in the end.) In fact, fairy tales may be considered the first horror stories (together with some myths).

What about hopeless stories? Well, pretty much anything by Lovecraft, or most any modern horror movie--and most horror books. Lovecraft was an unusually candid atheist. He believed that the universe was at best indifferent to mankind, and more likely actively hostile. Christians shouldn't copy that view.

Sometimes the hopelessness comes from the desire for a sequel--you've got to leave some room for the Horror to return, which means that the story doesn't altogether resolve. And resolution matters, because it's the frame of the story: the thing that marks the boundary between fact and fiction, the sign that you can close the book and go on with life.

Now, since one of the foundations of the Christian message is hope, I think we can eliminate right off anything that produces despair. A hopeful ending is called for. In our next post, we'll see why it isn't enough.

Other posts in this series:
The "Saint Judas" Syndrome
Once in a Full Moon
Adios, Suckers!
Frankenstein's Monstrance
Horror as it Should Be

The Horror!

And now, a sight so horrifying it will probably scar you for life. If you're like me, you're a junior geezer with a lot of scars already, so one more won't matter. But for the kiddies, note: Please ask your parents first. It will probably go like this:

You: Is it okay if I look at something on the Web that will scar me for life?

Mom: Is it kinky or illegal?

You: Uh... No.

Mom: Then your father probably hasn't seen it yet. Ask him.

Dad: Does it cost money?

You: No.

Parents: Great! We'll get the popcorn!


Anyway, click if you dare! (It'll prepare you for the next few days...)

A Vision of the Last Day

Yes! H. C. Andersen meets Left Behind!

Okay, no, it's not that kind of last day, but "A Vision of the Last Day" is still a good read. It's another example of what some people will call "preachy" without realizing that "preachy," if properly done, is good. Why? I suppose in this spin-sick world, people like the idea that someone actually believes something and will state it without hedging. I keep seeing "Christian" downgraded to "Inspirational" downgraded "Warm Fuzzies" downgraded to "Tepid Fluff." If you aren't securely anchored, you will drift, and the flow is always downhill. Scared of chasing people off? Don't be. The real power involved is from the Holy Spirit, who will draw people. Let him handle the PR. Our job is to present Christ faithfully.

Does that seem so horrible? It shouldn't. If you love someone, you will tend to talk about your beloved all the time. If you love Jesus, if he's your center, he will naturally come into everything you do. I wouldn't want to do a story that doesn't somehow lead to Christ, because only the story that connect to him have eternal value. Why work on a story that will burn up like dung before the saints and angels someday? Go for the gold!

The Story of a Mother

Today's story has a message. If you try that in modern writing and aren't a Big Name, they'll probably say it's "preachy" or "heavyhanded," synonyms that appear to mean, "Hey! How come you got a spine and I don't?" Worse yet, it's a message that contradicts modern soundbite piety.

Andersen's still right.

In other news, I said I'd explain why you should have a message (and a calling, too) or shut up. It's simple: writers today are effectively either teachers or prophets, and if you aren't called as either one, shut up. There's enough nattering already.

You can be in a subgroup (encouraging and exhorting are essentially types of prophecy, as I understand it), but unless God gives you something to say, you shouldn't say it anyway.

Now, I've encountered people who want it both ways. If you point out a theological or scriptural problem, they'll say, "Well, it's fiction. It's for Entertainment Purposes Only." (Just like a phone-in psychic! How cool is that?)

"Well, if it's just fiction, what's the harm in correcting it a bit?"

"I can't do that! GOD gave me this story!"

He gave you an unchangeable story For Entertainment Purposes Only? Cosmic!

Now, if the story is God-given, you are a teacher at least, more likely a prophet. And presumably God doesn't contradict what he says in the Bible. This is why it's astonishing how few Christian writers bother to read the Bible or otherwise check their facts. (Remember what used to happen to false prophets...)

The truth is more important than Your Story. Even if you think you're writing For Entertainment Purposes Only, you aren't. Just like sports and entertainment celebrities are role models even if they say they aren't, you're teaching your reader whether you like it or not. Shape up or shut up.